The Letter
by Bethany Ruth
Summary: Arthur is home alone, when he finds a safe in his house. In the safe is a letter that changes his life... Rated M for language and eventual slash. Arthur/Eames. On-going, ideas welcome.


I went on one of those story prompt websites and I thought this looked like it had potential for something really cool. So I thought I'd write it. Please bear in mind that I have no idea where I will go with this after this chapter, or even if there will be more chapters. If you have any ideas that you think would be cool/would really like to see, let me know in your review and I'll take some notes ;D Thanks for reading!

...

Long day. It had been, the _longest_ day in some time. Which I always thought was a weird expression because it's like, every day only has a certain amount of hours, right? So how can one day be longer than the others? Yet; somehow, it makes sense. This day though, this day had dragged on and on. It was stupidly long. Cobb couldn't make his mind up about whether or not the mark really was worth investigating on a personal level – which was stupid, because _of course_ the mark was worth investigating on a personal level – we're only going into her fucking mind. But hey, he's the boss and he's my friend, so he can fluctuate between ideas all day if he wants to. Then there was Ariadne. I mean – I love her and all, don't get me wrong – but today...she was just, not on form. Adorable, she is, focused, she is not. It's like talking to a kitten – like talking to a kitten whilst someone else dangles a ball of thread behind you, and then the kitten's just staring at the ball of yarn and you're like 'What the fuck kitty? Why aren't you paying attention to anything I'm saying?' And then the kitty's like 'Don't you get it? There's a huge ball of yarn behind you and I want to put my claws in it till it dies.' And then you're like 'Well that's stupid. For a start it isn't alive, so it will never die, so you're whole escapade is pointless. Then there's the fact that that ball of yarn will be in no way helpful towards creating a realistic enough Ralph Lauren store for our mark to feel comfortable enough to tell us whether or not she's cheating on her husband with his dad.' And then the kitty's like 'Cheating on him with his dad? That's messed up man.' And you're like 'I know kitty. I know.'

What was I saying? Yeah, Ariadne was so distracted. In this situation: replace the kitten with Ariadne, and the ball of yarn with the many, many pictures of Ralph Lauren items I had to go through with her in preparation for creating the environment. That girl was like a bee to honey with those shoes. And clothes. And bags. And a whole cohort of other things that I couldn't even name because I have no idea what they are. The person dangling the ball of yarn, in this instance, was Eames. Naturally. What a bastard. Until Cobb made up his mind about whether or not to 'get personal' with the mark or not, Eames had literally nothing helpful to do. So he decided to make my life a fuck load harder by taunting Ariadne with clothes she can't afford with her student loans, that he can afford with his gigantic trust fund and will never buy for her, because he's cruel. And has no taste. I guess I can't blame him though: the only thing worse than having hoards of work is having none. In my opinion. Eames though, Eames probably hates all forms of work, in which case I can blame him. Bastard.

But Eames is irrelevant at the time to which I'm referring. Kind of. He does get involved later but not right...Urgh, you'll see, alright? I can't be bothered explaining it all this outright, you'll just have to trust me and...just go with it. Because it gets weird fast.

I was sat in my house – yes I own a house – flicking through the catalogue for th Ralph Lauren line for the new season, focusing on suits. Not because I have a fetish for suits. Because I don't. Well I do, but that's not why I was looking: I needed to give Ariadne some feedback the next day on what I thought of her design and I'd decided it was far too girly, and that there would be no prompt for Carrie [the mark] and her best friend Ophelia [provided by Eames' debatable talent] to start talking about men, ergo Carrie's affair-or-not-affair. So I was looking through some suits to see which ones would look most suiting [no pun intended] in the dreamscape. The fact that I was circling and writing down the order codes of ones I particularly liked, ready to call and spend well over half of my inception pay on them, was irrelevant – like many other things, I'm sure you've learned.

My house is a nice place: classic American suburban house really. Nice, big lawn, full of lush grass. White outer walls with large glass windows that have – quite pretty – sky blue shutters on them. I was sat in the living room: my favourite room in the house [aside from my bedroom, because _man_ that room is sexy]. The living room has dark wooden panel flooring, with a furry dark vermillion rug in front of the fireplace. Above the fireplace was an oil portrait of my parents. I hated it but they gave it to me as a gift and it must have cost a fortune, so I hung it as the centre piece of my living room, and decided I'd never tell a soul about how much it makes my skin crawl. There are two, large, brown leather couches in the living room – one facing the fireplace, rug, and oil painting, and the other at a right angle to the first, facing the window with a view of the large from yard. At the moment in time to which I am referring, I was sat on the couch that faces the window. I remember I was looking at a particularly gorgeous suit – all black, one of my favourites – and thinking that it would probably look better on somebody with a broader frame than mine; my muscle's too lean, when it happened. By 'it', I mean that hideous oil painting fell from the wall and crashed to the floor, almost causing me to shit my pants.

"FUCK!" Upon reflection, that was perhaps not the most elegant reaction. But hey, it was a reflex. A thought occurred to me as I put the catalogue beside me on the couch and got up to check that the painting wasn't totally, horrendously, irreparably damaged. To my chagrin, it wasn't. Well there went that idea. "Shit. It's totally fine." I sighed, picking it up off the floor and lifting it back to the wall. Then I stopped, because, on the wall; where my painting should hang, was safe, built into the wall. How I hadn't noticed it when I moved in, I had no idea. Curiosity got the better of me; I set the painting beside the fireplace and stepped up onto the small ledge of the fireplace, leaning up to the safe, placing my ear against it as I took the lock in my hand and twisted it tentatively. Although technically I was only a criminal in the dream-world, I had dealt with things in a similar vein to safe-cracking before. Satisfaction overwhelmed me as I heard the click of the safe unlocking. Opening it slowly, I have to admit I was mildly disappointed when all I found inside was a letter. _Then again_, I remember thinking; _a letter is still pretty mysterious and cool. _I tentatively took it out of the safe and stepped down off the small ledge of the fireplace, blowing the dust off of it carefully. I unfolded it and read in amazement:

Dear Arthur

If you're reading this it means I have succeeded in my goal. I need to warn you Arthur: you are not safe. I can't tell you if it's this job or the next one, but sometime soon, someone will betray you and you will fall into grave danger. Trust no-one. Except Eames. Eames is the only person you can trust right now: he loves you more than you could possibly know. Please Arthur, I know it must be hard for you to believe this, but it's true. I promise you. I mean, why would I lie? Just promise me you'll be careful Arthur. Promise me.

Your friend, yourself

Arthur

And that was the day that my life – my already fucked up, criminal life – changed forever.

...

So yeah, this was something I wanted to throw out there. Tell me what you think and we'll see what I can do with it eh? Yeah, sounds good to me too. Reviews are appreciated more than you know: I wrote it so I could know what others thought, after all.


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